


What Once Was Sweet

by just_a_dram



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Awkward Romance, F/M, Jealousy, Marriage of Convenience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3428084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_a_dram/pseuds/just_a_dram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before they wed, things were sweet between Jon and Sansa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Home a moon’s turn earlier than he anticipated, Jon’s feet stutter to a stop in the midst of the keep, when he glances up at the torch lit façade of the partially rebuilt Winterfell to see if his wife is abed. She is not. Sansa stands silhouetted against the window with another beside her. Backs turned, they do not see the men dismounting down below, although surely a servant will carry word of their arrival to his lady soon enough. Not soon enough to spare him this sight, however.

Sam, whose face is buried in an account book that he dragged out to greet Jon with—Jon’s least favorite sort of business to attend to and one which surely could wait until daylight hours—stumbles into Jon’s side with an  _oof_  at his lord’s unexpected pause.

“Would you tell me,” Jon begins, and then stops, scrubbing his long beard with his hand, as his gaze drops from the curved outlines of his wife’s bodice to the guard flanked entrance before him.

Would you tell me if Sansa made a cuckold of me?

As the maester of Winterfell, it is unlikely such things would go unnoticed by Sam, and he is still Jon’s friend. A fact daily proved by his sometimes highhanded way of dealing with Jon’s shortcomings as lord or prince or husband. Of course, Sam is never highhanded with Sansa. They are friends too, but of a different sort. Fumbling gave way there to an ease Jon can do nothing but envy.

“Lady Targaryen has difficulty sleeping,” Sam says, as if guessing at Jon’s unfinished question.

It provides a sensible explanation for his wife’s late hours, but not the presence of the Kingslayer in his wife’s chambers.

“There are draughts for that. Are there not?” Jon asks, striding forward once more, but Sam’s answer is lost on the new winter’s wind, whipping away the sound as he trots to catch up.

Out of deference for her fine sensibilities, Jon never comes to his wife’s bed reeking of horses or sweat or ale, but as they rode closer to Winterfell, a mad part of him considered forgoing a long bath so as to come directly to her upon his arrival. Indeed, he hardly ever troubles his wife, freshly bathed or not.

At first he kept away out of awkwardness. Theirs was not a love match and how could it be given their past? Instead, they were wed at his aunt’s insistence. While the queen holds little love for Sansa, the sole remaining member of a traitorous house, the marriage of two cousins would accomplish Daenerys’ political goals. She would secure the North, where they had no use for her rule but some lingering respect for the man once known as Ned Stark’s bastard. Jon balked, but anything Daenerys proposed could not be taken as a mere suggestion with a dragon pit backing her desires. He did not expect Sansa to take kindly to the thinly veiled command, but when Jon brought the proposal to Sansa with his stomach in knots tied tighter than he thought possible after years of battle, she acquiesced immediately. Sweetly in fact.

Everything about their reunion was sweet. She was pleased to see him, when he arrived in the Vale. More pleased at the sight of him than he could ever remember her acting when they were children. Though he was no longer her brother—half brother—she made a favorite of him. Petted him and tended to his needs in a way no one had ever bothered to do.

He didn’t love her, but he could hardly ask for less from a wife. Perhaps she felt similarly inclined to accept the benefits of the arrangement, knowing how much worse her situation could be. After all, she was quite obviously relieved, when he put Daenerys’ plans for them both to her.

_I’m glad it is you. We shall both go home._

The wedding night was awkward, and perhaps that was his fault, for she was a maid and he had never acted so coldly with Ygritte, but it was one thing to be his former sister’s favorite and another thing to put his cock in her. So he kept away. A name day has passed since he draped a Targaryen cloak over her fine boned shoulders, but Jon only needs the fingers on his burnt sword hand to count the number of times he has bedded his lady wife. Not enough times to put a babe in her and give Daenerys the heir she requires.

Duty brought him to her bed, but something other than duty made him think to visit her tonight, despite the late hour. He missed her, while he was out ranging with the men. It was an unexpected feeling, missing her, for he’s grown wary of his wife. What once was sweet grew sour all too quickly after they were wed, and Jon was as eager to ride from Winterfell’s gates as he was to catch sight of them not eight moons earlier.

Still, in the cold of his bedroll, his thoughts drifted to her and self incrimination crept in until he reached an unavoidable conclusion. Sansa is not the problem; he is. Never having thought to be a lord husband, never letting himself dwell on the possibility, he is ill equipped to play the role. He is stiff, where she is gentle. He is formal, where she is sweet. He is reminded of what he was here—a bastard boy—where she is most at home. He dreaded being over eager and she withdrew her shy invitations to visit her.

Perhaps he could set things right if he took a different tack with her. Perhaps he need only surprise her upon his return. Kiss her more sweetly. Tell her how lovely she is. Give her a babe.

After weeks of sleeping under stars that made him think of her—of the hairnet Sansa wore to supper set with tiny blinking jewels, which she removed so carefully from her hair, while he waited on the bed for her—Jon was ready to believe the fault ought to be laid at his dirty, scuffed boots. It was disquieting to know he drove her to throw up walls between them, but if it was his fault, he could work to undo the damage.

It is a poisonous feeling to suspect he isn’t the one to blame at all. Jon doesn’t like the bile that drives him to her chamber. It is far different than the neediness that made him imagine a different sort of homecoming. It’s a feeling he knows well enough, but one he hoped driven away forever by his legitimization, his marriage, his return to Winterfell. He has more than he ever dreamt of as a boy, so there is no need for the rot of jealousy.

Unless in his absence from her bed, someone else thought to replace him.

Jon knows he won’t find him here, when he raps hard on the thick oak door. Sansa will have been apprised of her husband’s return before Jon has time to climb the stone steps to her chamber, and the Kingslayer will be safely away. Nevertheless, Jon indulges thoughts of running Jaime Lannister through with the sword still slung at his side. Not that it would be easy. As one of Sansa’s guards, the Kingslayer is always armed, and while he is without his sword hand, he trains daily with Brienne to overcome his impediment.

Wrapped in a fur that is too long for her tall frame, Sansa opens the door with a light in her eyes that dies at the sight of his scowl, her gaze dropping to the floor. Perhaps she was expecting someone else.

“Welcome home, my lord,” she says, stepping aside to let him through.

Jon hesitates, regretting that he didn’t take the time to wash up. Ire drove him here, but his current state will only confirm for her the differences between Jon Snow, bastard boy no matter Queen Daenerys’ proclamations, and Jaime Lannister, knight and eldest son of House Lannister. His armor is always well polished. His courtesies effortless. He dances as easily as he fights.

Jon has never danced with his wife. Not even on the day of their wedding. He left that to men who would not tread on her satin clad toes. That was a day unmarred by the Kingslayer’s presence, for he was not welcome. Daenerys wouldn’t have allowed it. But he has danced with her since. Gods know what else they have done with Jon’s back turned.

The door is heavy, but Sansa closes it so carefully behind him after he steps inside, that it makes naught but a quiet snick, and then she turns round, innocent eyes on him, and he finds himself hating the facility with which she lies, the easy way she has at manipulating men.

It burns in his chest, and he speaks too loudly. “You are too familiar with your guardsmen.”

She blinks and backs away from him, withdrawing into the center of the room on silent feet.

Jon has never pressed her for details of what passed while he was at The Wall, but he has ferreted out enough to know that whatever her crimes against him, being harsh with his wife is an unforgiveable sin. There is an ugliness in him. An ugly, growling animal more insistent than the most vivid wolf dream.

“Your mother would never have been so careless.”

His wife’s mouth sets in a firm line, and suddenly she looks less afraid of his bark and more piqued. Her mother is a topic that does not often come up between them. Jon holds no lasting grudge against Lady Stark, but he couldn’t care for her the way Sansa did as children and certainly doesn’t now. Knowing what became of her, Jon has always considered it better not to bring her up at all. To lecture Sansa, to compare her unfavorably with her mother is dangerous.

“You have a specific complaint?” she asks, her words overly crisp as if her tongue clips her teeth with a sharp lash.

“I do. There is no reason for Jaime Lannister to be in your rooms at this hour. Particularly with your lord husband away.”

Sansa turns to the hearth, where before a roaring fire a round table is laden with half eaten food, two pewter goblets, and a cyvasse set. Things they have shared together, while he stupidly rode towards Winterfell with hope and regret setting his spurs into the sides of his horse.

“I would offer you a seat and some wine, so we might discuss my transgressions in comfort, but the hour is late as you helpfully pointed out, and you are not yourself.”

No, he is not himself. He was not raised to behave in this manner. Ned Stark never would have countenanced bursting into a woman’s chambers or raising his voice in this manner.

“I don’t care for wine.” But the Kingslayer does.

“If I knew you were expected, I would have sent for ale.”

“That I was not expected is obvious. I’m sorry for catching you unawares,” he says, his voice laden with every nasty supposition that has found a home in his tired mind, since seeing their figures paired against the night sky.

“I think you ought to go to bed, Jon,” she says, softening slightly, though her hand fists in the dove grey of her skirts.

She rarely says his given name any more. She said it often enough before they were wed and again after he held her beneath the furs long enough for her not to feel like a brood mare, but hardly ever since.

It works on him like a tonic, and he drags his hand through his filthy hair with a heavy sigh.

If she finds comfort in another man warming her bed, is it anyone’s fault but his own? The only way she could go home or become Lady of Winterfell was to accept a marriage with her former brother, when by all rights the title was already hers. Since the death of their brothers, Winterfell has been hers and Jon should have fought harder to keep it that way. Maybe he wanted it as much as Daenerys did. His aunt is no fool. She no doubt traded on such secret desires in getting her way with him.

“I am sorry,” he says again, head tucked down and without any underlying venom, as his hand finds the cool iron handle of her door.

And he is. He’s sorry for whatever part he’s played in what is broken between them. That he even thought to come here in anger after avoiding her for so long is evidence enough of his inadequacies. But he shall forever rue the day he granted Sansa’s one request: to bring the Kingslayer to Winterfell to serve in her personal guard. Jon might have fixed their soured marriage otherwise, but what hope does he have now?


	2. Chapter 2

Sansa avoids Jon all day, keeping to her solar and having her meals brought to her there. Something must have passed between his wife and his friend, for Sam avoids him too. It’s a rather pointed gesture after Jon has been away for so long. There is important business to attend to. Some of it pressing enough that Sam attempted to bring it to his attention the previous night, when there wasn’t enough light in the yard to read the figures writ in ink on the page.

With the two people closest to him keeping away, solitude is the order of the day long before Jon goes to the godswood. He reaches the weirwood tree in advance of the weak winter sun slipping below the horizon, but by the time his feet retrace his prints in the snow, it has grown dark. Enough time has passed in painful self reflection that he hates himself as much as he hates the Kingslayer, but he still wants Jaime Lannister gone. It’s what he intends on suggesting to his wife, for the good of their marriage as much as his peace of mind, when he sees the up and down bob of her unbound, coppery hair peeking through a break in the ancient grove of trees.

Her face is composed, no sign of displeasure at the sight of him etched on her fine features. But she can hardly be happy with him.

As she comes into earshot, he holds out his arm to her. “May I accompany you to the godswood?”

Sometimes Sansa visits her mother’s sept. Sometimes he finds her kneeling before the roots of her father’s faith. Jon has never asked to what gods she turns for guidance. In truth, he knows precious little about her. Taking the time to learn her better might have spared them both this pain.

“I only ventured out to find you,” she says, slowing to a stop before him and tucking a wayward curl behind her ear.

The shell of her ear is pink with the cold, and he swallows, wondering how the chill of her earlobe would feel between his lips. All his plans for his surprise return, how he would pet and caress with as much tenderness as she deserved, are pent up inside of him, turning him into something he was not before he left her. It is inconvenient timing at best.

“You shouldn’t have in this cold. I would have come to you.”

She doesn’t reach for his proffered arm and he lets it drop back to his side.

“I didn’t want the servants to hear us and have there be more talk. Don’t trouble yourself. I’m warm enough in your furs.”

She’s wearing the same too long fur Jon noticed last night, when his blood sung hot in his veins. She wears it now closed at her neck with a Tully brooch, a silver fish with delicate scales and sapphire eyes. The blackness of the bear fur is a shock tucked up around the pale skin of her graceful neck. He can’t imagine how or why she came to lay hands on it. The long winter was hard on every corner of the kingdom and with another winter quick on its heels, things have been difficult, especially in the North, but she is not so ill provided for that she need go without basic wants.

“If your furs are not sufficient to keep you warm, my lady, I shall have new ones made for you.”

“It isn’t that. I like that they’re yours,” she says, gesturing back towards the castle in invitation for him to follow her home.

Jon turns halfway back towards the godswood, a curse heavy on the back of his tongue.

“Jon?” she prompts, when he makes no move to follow. “Unless you mind me wearing it?”

It’s his name again, twice in as many days, and he hopes it means there is enough there between them to salvage. If there is, he must begin with apologies.

“No, I don’t mind.”

It never occurred to him that she might want to wear something of his. The very thought stirs him in spite of the bite of the cold, and he adjusts his own fur to hide the evidence of his need for her before leaning forward to catch up. Once he does, he walks half a step behind, checking his stride so as not to outpace her. It also happens to make it easier to speak without having to look her full in the face.

“I should have never spoken to you in that manner last night,” he says. “It was wrong.”

“It frightened me,” she says lightly, though if she is willing to admit that, he knows there is real depth to the statement. “Don’t do it again.”

“I won’t. I swear it.” Last night, he didn’t get as far as his bedchamber before vowing that his behavior was not ever to be repeated. If they must keep apart for her happiness, then they must keep apart, but he will never frighten her again. Jon fidgets with the cuffs of his gloves and then brushes off his doublet with unnecessary brusqueness. “If it contributed to gossip, I am sorry for that too.”

“It isn’t the first time. There is always gossip. Our marriage is a daily source of tittle tattle for our servants and the smallfolk.”

If that is true, he is unaware of it. Perhaps more has cause to reach the lady of Winterfell’s ears than her lord and prince’s. But if Sansa is pained by what others whisper behind cupped hands, taking the Kingslayer to bed was ill-advised.

Any time Jon thinks of that gold hand pressed against her skin—skin he has scarcely seen with the candles blown out and her shift pulled up to her hips—he wants to slice open the man’s belly and watch his innards spill out. It gives his words a low sort of vehemence he wishes didn’t bleed through, when he makes his wishes plain. “I want Jaime Lannister gone.”

If the Lannister man was Jon’s to command, he would be gone already. But he is not. Jon always has respected his wife’s right to control her household, and her personal guard is just that—hers.

“Please don’t ask that of me.”

His huff of irritation mists before his face. Perhaps she begs for Jaime because she loves him, but other than Jaime’s fine bearing and superior courtesies, the things Sansa liked as a girl, it is a match that makes little sense to Jon. When he agreed to let Jaime come here—after Tyrion’s impassioned plea spared Jaime from being roasted like a goat—he didn’t understand why Sansa wanted a Lannister, any Lannister close by.

“Their family would have seen all of us dead, Sansa. They finished half the job.”

She spins. The furs she took from him drag, throwing snow up on his breeches, when her delicate feet plant themselves beside him. “Do you think I need a history lesson? You didn’t happen to watch any of them die.”

“Which is why I will never understand.”

“No? Ser Jaime came to save me, when no one else thought to bother. And he didn’t want my title.”

Jon did. Jon wanted to be lord of Winterfell, same as every other lordling. He’d wanted it from the time he came to understand everything was to be Robb’s and he was naught but his father’s bastard.

The Kingslayer may not have wanted Winterfell, when he found Sansa in the Vale, but he hardly has been without selfish design since. “He wanted something.”

Sansa rolls her eyes. The expression startles Jon nearly as much as seeing her lit by torches with the tall figure of Jaime Lannister at her side. It’s a sharp reminder of how she once was as tart as she was sweet. He hasn’t seen such evident scorn from her since they were children and she and Jeyne would tease Arya for having hair like a bird’s nest and embroidery just as narled.

“We keep each other company and that is all. Jaime Lannister is in love with his dead sister.” Her brows arch at  _sister_ , her tone as sharp as the edge of Longclaw. “Whatever you might think him capable of, you might have considered the character of your wife. I did what I had to in order to survive, but I am not wicked. You are not the only honorable one.”

It’s a reproof as sharp as a slap. “Sansa,” he says, reaching for the kid glove hands she holds close to herself, but she presses them firmly to her middle and he doesn’t have the nerve to prize them from her body.

“Those Ser Jaime would have killed for are gone. He can do none of us any further harm. I’ve never asked you to thank him for saving me, but I won’t turn him out.”

Ought he to have thanked the man? Winterfell would have been Jon’s after the Wall fell if Jaime hadn’t whisked Sansa away ahead of Daenerys’ dragons. Jon wanted Winterfell, but not under those circumstances. There would be no family remaining to him if Jaime Lannister did not seek Sansa out on the eve of Daenerys’ conquest. No wife dear enough to Jon that he cut short a ranging expedition far too soon in order to hurry back to her and fold her into his chest.

She rocks on her heels, looking down at the tips of her highly shined boots punched through the bright snow. “Shall we go back to how things were? Since you have my promise that no man visits my bed?”

The flush on her cheeks is pretty, but he regrets it, for he should have never given cause to put it there. No man visits her bed. Not even her lord husband. What madness made him believe otherwise?

Jon knew he offended with his rough treatment of her, but he gave far worse offense suspecting Sansa of betraying him. He is the sole vow breaker here. Shame hollows him out. He stares back at her bright blue eyes, lashes wet with unspent tears. Mortification thickens his tongue and he hesitates. Giving up on an answer, she begins to pick her way towards the castle once more, her feet lifting high enough to be free of the snow with each step.

“Is that what you want?” he calls out to her.

“I don’t know.” He tilts his head to hear her better. She is hard to make out with her back to him and a distance between them ten lengths wide. “I think we both have been disappointed in our marriage.”

What he can glimpse of her skin is luminous under the moonlight and he wants to go to her and kiss her lips, her cheeks, her neck the way he never has, but he holds himself back.

“I’m sorry to have disappointed you, my lady.”

She casts a look over her shoulder as inscrutable to him as the True Tongue. “As am I, my lord.”


	3. Chapter 3

His wife appears again at meals, though the wrongness between them only seems to have increased tenfold, since he returned to Winterfell and turned their life on edge with his accusations. Jon hates this rot all the more for it being hidden behind smiles and soft words and sad eyes. He supposes this is what Sansa wants—a public face to obscure the chasm between them. Appearances count with her, so he plays along as best he can, which isn’t very well. He fumbles for words and spills at table and it feels as if Sam’s eyes are forever locked on him.

It’s Sam’s assessment that Jon is an idiot that convinces Jon to come to Sansa’s chambers once more. If she truly wanted him to keep away, Sam would know it and never suggest such a thing.

_You’re here, making a mess of the ledger, when you should be with your wife._

Jon did make a mess of the ledger. At every drafty blow from the hallway, the candlelight obscured with darting shadows the numbers Sam had recorded earlier. Jon squinted and scratched out his sums and grew frustrated with himself. A name day ago, he wouldn’t have had any difficulty reading in dim lighting. None of them are old, but to think he will always have time to set things right is folly. The things he always wanted and imagined out of reach as a bastard might still slip away, while he paces his chamber alone at night.

Sansa’s chambers are not far, though they feel it. He requires something to fortify the spirit in order to make the journey across the castle and up the steps to her chambers. Ale is his preference, but wine is close at hand, when he decides to act on Sam’s advice. The too short summer produced no good vintages. What they have is unpleasantly sour. Sansa sweetens hers with honey, but they have little of that in Winterfell’s stores. To ensure there is enough for her, Jon always goes without. With his throat already feeling tight, he could do with some honey tonight. He manages the job, however, swallowing with a grimace.

Properly lubricated, he stands before her door, memories of his ugly behavior at the forefront of his mind. The shame is not wholly unwelcome, for it is a reminder to check his pride and behave as he was taught. Not like an animal.

His knock is answered by a muffled direction to enter, but he lingers in the wide doorway, allowing her ample opportunity to see who has entered her presence and time enough to withdraw her invitation if that should be her wish.

When she twists in her armchair, the fire casts a glow over her hair that reminds him of the wildling phrase of old. Her face is serene—perfectly blank in the way that angered him so keenly when he hoped to find Jaime Lannister here so that he might dispatch him from both their lives with one well directed blow. But that unaffected gaze is as much her shield as the one he carried into battle. Deception and manipulation have been her tools, but that doesn’t mean she uses them on him.

“May I speak with you?” he asks with his hands behind his back and his head canted down.

“My door is always open to you, my lord.”

The chair next to hers is where he once sat. They spent quiet evenings together before she began to cool to his presence and he stopped turning his feet towards her door. It doesn’t feel right to take up that space again uninvited. He walks to the window and stares out, hands pressed to the rough stone. His chambers are lit by little more than loopholes, but Sansa’s opens onto the night sky through a wide Oriel window, an improvement that was made during rebuilding. It provides ample view of the cloudless night, where stars prick the black of the sky. A view of the yard too, which is precisely what got him in trouble before.

“Can I offer you refreshment?”

His wife doesn’t look up from her work to make her offer, as he turns from the window. Instead, with lips pressed in concentration, she picks at some mistaken stitch she made. There is always mending to be done, but tonight it is finer work draped over her lap—stockings decorated in silk ribbon embroidery.

If it wasn’t for their companionable nights together, he wouldn’t know her stockings are embroidered with vines and flowers and fish with fins that swirl. He only knows her day dress, which is usually quite staid, not unlike her lady mother before her, and the simplicity of her unbleached shifts, which she either always wears abed or merely in his presence to preserve her modesty. There has been no leisurely perusal of the arch of her calves hidden in silky stockings.

It is a tantalizing prospect, but it is the mistake that draws his focus. Sansa doesn’t make mistakes in her needlework: she is not as serene as she appears.

“There is wine by the bed.”

“I’ve had my fill.” Any more and he risks hauling her heavy skirts up to her hips to see whether she wears a pair of lovely stockings tonight—a more direct way of expressing what he thinks he wants from their marriage. “Thank you.”

She dressed like a Targaryen today in wine colored velvet and a gold dragon pin set with rubies that Jon gave to her on the day of their wedding. During the course of her young life, she has been so many people. She slips into each role with more facility than Jon could ever manage. She slipped right into their marriage, and he supposes the disappointment on her side is that he failed to do the same. Whether her interior transformation is as complete as her external one, however, he’s never known. For all he knows, she was as troubled by her wifely duties as he found himself to be.

“You spoke of disappointment.”

She is discomfited by his abruptness, but the only sign of it is the slow rise of her bosom, as she draws a controlled breath.

“I shouldn’t have said it,” she says with her needle hovering above her work, a narrow, Tully blue ribbon dangling down. “You married me for the same plain sorts of reasons I married you. It was foolishness, girlish nonsense I thought myself well and truly over, to think it might come to be more.”

Jon sinks his hip into the wall, letting the solid bones of the castle hold him up, as he folds his arms over his chest. They are Northerners, Starks, and they should draw strength from this place. It has done quite the opposite. Winterfell has tugged at their seams, leaving them as threadbare as the tunics he gives over to Sansa’s expert hands to mend. There is no one to mend them.

Sansa’s parents came to love each other within the walls of Winterfell, and there were things between them that must have made the adjustment less than easy. Things like Jon’s presence, when Ned Stark brought him here to be raised as Robb’s brother. Sansa’s too.

Sibling affection was an impediment Lord and Lady Stark never needed surmount.

“It was more difficult than I imagined it would be,” he confesses.

That he was surprised by that fact was only because he felt so happy with her, when they were reunited. She made him happy, not only as family restored, but also with her sweet attentions to him. Those attentions, he imagined, befitted man and wife and would smooth the way for them.

That was before he knew how it would feel, being inside his former sister. That his cock responded to her on their wedding night without aid was not a relief. It struck him in the moment as horribly damning, and he reflected on it later with growing discomfort. It was a discomfort uneased by the knowledge that each time they coupled, it was matter of fact, done out of duty in spite of his body’s betrayal.

They are not Lannisters. But he is a Targaryen. No matter how much he wants—will always want—to be a Stark.

That is his burden. But Sansa deserves more than a coldly dutiful husband, who will never deign kiss her lips for fear he will like it overmuch and the blood will tell.

“I’ve no cause to blame you for that. If I have been distant,” she says with pause and gives a shake of her head. “I’m sorry I’m not Arya.”

Whatever is wrong between them, it is not that. “Don’t be. I never could have married Arya.”

“Of course not,” she says with arched brows. “You loved her.”

“I loved you too.”

“Yes, I was your sister. I am your sister. That is the problem. Is it not?”

“You’re my wife.”

They have a past, an inconvenient one given their current roles, but it need not entirely define them. Not in the way his relationship with Arya will always be defined by their childhood. If Arya were to return and Jon would spy Jaime Lannister in her chambers in the wee hours, Jon would be murderous, but not out of jealousy. His concern would be brotherly, and he knows that to be true whether or not he ever sees Arya again.

“While I was gone,” he says, crossing one boot over the other, “I looked up at the stars and thought of that hairnet you sometimes wear.”

Though her attention remains fixed on her work, her needle stops the relentless ply and pull. “That’s a pretty thing to say.”

“Is it?”

She lifts her face to him, eyes wide. “I think so.”

Jon feels carried along by her open gaze. “I came home, because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“Jon.” His name sounds like a caress.

“Who is the fool now?”

Sansa ties off her silk ribbon, snips it with the silver crane shaped scissors at her side, and folds her unfinished stocking in half. He watches her tuck everything back in her basket and then smooth her skirts with elegant hands, composing herself with slow deliberation. He half expects her to dismiss him, when she finishes and stands, but instead she comes to him. His pulse jumps under the collar of his leather doublet, as her fingers curl around his, drawing his arm down from his chest.

“The only fool bit was believing I’d dishonor you.”

“I was jealous.”

“It wasn’t becoming on you,” she says, lacing their fingers together. “But I misjudged you too. I thought perhaps you were angry, thinking someone had taken what was yours. Something you don’t even want.”

“It isn’t that, Sansa.” He looks down at their hands clasped together. “I don’t know how to be what I want us to be.”

“That’s a place to start though. Wanting.”

He bends to press his forehead to her upturned face. “Aye, it’s a place to start.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My intention is to write a fourth and final part to this fic. Watch this space!


End file.
